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A few years ago, I was lucky enough to share a dinner table in Santa Barbara, California with many amazing women who were, like me, presenting at the Console-ing Passions conference. We had phenomenal discussion, some laughs, and great times. Over the weekend, I was incredibly impressed with many things, but that meal stood out in my mind as it drew me to some incredible panels and introduced me to intensely interesting new scholarship I was previously unaware of.

One of the primary figures at that meal was a woman named Tristan Taormino. Not only was she well-spoken and funny, but she was quick, smart and incredibly incisive when discussing issues in and around feminism and sexuality. I remember sitting across from her and thinking, “This is what a successful woman looks like.” It was a fabulous time, as right beside her sat another woman who I have greatly admired throughout my academic career, Constance Penley. Needless to say, the fact that I didn’t sound like a babbling idiot would have been enough for me, but we ended up having some very intriguing conversations on the projects that Taormino was working on and the state of the adult industry in general. I learned quite a lot. I would like to think I contributed, but who knows?

Since then, I have followed Taormino’s career in earnest, having seen her presentation at the conference and found it to be like her: bold, intelligent, and necessary. While being a feminist does not mean that you have to be interested in pornographic content or the film work that she does, I feel that her work is incredibly helpful on many levels to many groups of people. She is sex-positive (refreshing in a world that seems to hate the body and sexuality so very much), and has made the attempt to use that in a very productive way to help others, through books, articles, and cinema. This is a very basic and shallow description of her, and I would ask you to inquire further into her career if it seems like something that would be of interest to you. Be warned, it is all adult-themed (not work-safe), but it is all worthwhile, as is she.

So why this article? Well, this morning I awoke to some rather disconcerting news. Taormino, who had been scheduled to be the key-note speaker at Oregon State University’s Modern Sex Conference, was “uninvited” due to her resume and website.

Um, excuse me? So, let me get this straight- you booked her, knowing full well what she does for a living (which extends so far beyond pornography it’s laughable), confirmed the date, agreed to fees, did all the business-y type stuff, then you looked at the resume and website? And, OSU, I hate to split hairs, but I looked at your Modern Sex Conference and…you have some panels there that seem decently risqué. So can you explain to me why you are tossing Tristan Taormino, former editor of On Our Backs, the nation’s longest running lesbian-produced lesbian magazine, a woman who has been on a multitude of television channels discussing sexuality, a woman who lectures at universities from the east to the west coast (ones WAY more highly regarded than you), and (not that this matters, but if a pedigree means something to you) the niece of Thomas Pynchon??

They said something about fearing that they would have the university’s budget cut as it was being used to support pornography. Um, ok. Interesting that Tristan’s response to the entire debacle was:

“I’m extremely disappointed that OSU has decided to cancel my appearance. I’ve been protested before, but never uninvited. I have never misrepresented who I am or what I do. I am proud of all the work I do, including the sex education films and feminist pornography I make. The talk I planned to give at this conference, titled “Claiming Your Sexual Power” has nothing to do with porn, but the porn is such an easy target for anti-sex conservatives and censors. I find it ironic that one of the missions of the conference is to understand diverse perspectives of sexuality. Apparently, my perspective—one of educating and empowering people around their sexuality—isn’t welcome at OSU.”

I have two words for you Oregon State University: not cute. And actually I have one more word: CENSORSHIP.

See, here’s the really sticky part. And this is the part that got in my craw the worst. On Tristan’s twitterfeed today, she wrote:

“Several OSU staff have contacted me w/support but won’t support me publicly for fear of losing their jobs, they say.”

WOW. I don’t know about you, but that got me. As someone who got laid off from a job I liked, in a bad economy, I know how much a job means. So this is no joke. But I’m not going to mince words here: this is some fucked up shit. My gut reaction made me ill. Why? I didn’t know what I would do if I was in the position of one of those staff members. I thought about it for a few minutes. Then I realized that there was no way in the world that if I worked at OSU, I would ever pussyfoot my way around the situation.

What if this weren’t about sexually charged subject matter?

Would we allow censorship to take hold of us that hard that we would not stand up for ourselves and what we believe in? And if so, what will we become? I know that we have families, children, friends, lovers, pets, responsibilities. Hell, times are tough. But do tough times mean that we sell out each other? Some may say I cannot equate what happened today with Tristan Taormino/OSU to historic events like McCarthyism or Germany in WWII. And yes, it seems like hyperbole. Maybe it is. I haven’t eaten a lot today. But when I sit here, and think about the situation, it scares me. This is a mild situation. What if it were something larger?

The concept that fear overrides personal values frightens me. If every one of those staff members publicly came together in support of this women, they would not be afraid of losing their jobs. Yet, losing one’s job in this economy is a fate close to death it seems. Unemployment is an endless void that one does not want to fall into. “Keep that job at all costs,” the voice says, “even if it means sacrificing your own belief system.”

ROUGH.

In truth, the fact that they are not letting Tristan Taormino speak at a MODERN SEX CONFERENCE means that they are not so modern after all. Instead, she will be appearing at a place called She Bop in Portland, a female-friendly adult shop. Preaching to the converted, I guess, but at least still doing it.

If any of this bugs you the way it bugged me, please read this note from Tristan and respond in kind:

Note from Tristan:

Don’t Let the Anti-Sex Conservatives Win!

If you support free speech and my mission of sexual empowerment, please voice your opinion about OSU’s decision to cancel my appearance at the last minute (and not reimburse me for travel expenses) to the following people. I would really appreciate your support —Tristan

Christopher Trumbo died today. And that saddens me greatly. As I sit here, tap-tap-tapping away at my computer, I have Johnny Got His Gun on in the background. Not only does it remind me of why I am here and why I became interested in the film world in the first place, but it also reminds me of why I became passionate about political issues, and where the two collided.

In the early ’90’s, when people were obsessively concerned about heavy metal music turning kids suicidal or into massive drug-fiends, heavy metal music was very busy turning me into a history buff and a cinephile. See, in 1988 Metallica released an album called …And Justice For All, which included a song called “One.” I didn’t get my grubby little adolescent paws on it until a few years later when I was hip-deep in the penny loafers and uniform skirt of an all-girls Catholic school (needless to say, being a metal fan in that location earned me more than a few detentions-that and the fact that I wore black nail polish on a regular basis). But I purchased …And Justice because I was a big Metallica fan and I had seen the video for “One” on MTV, most likely on Headbanger’s Ball with Riki Rachtman. When I saw that video, my life changed forever.

As many people are in their early teen years, I was a complete jerk to my parents. However, I had some presence of mind and enough brain cell capacity to reach out to my mother (who is exceptionally awesome) and tell her all about this video I had seen. I had also done my research in the academic journals of the time (Metal Edge, Circus, Hit Parader, and especially RIP) to find out more about this phenomenal piece of work. “One” seemed different to me. The sentiment was strange (ie outwardly political, and liberal at that!), the video structure was unusual…the entire assemblage was ground-breaking in my eyes.

The conclusions to my research were good and bad: the film was unavailable to be rented. The book however? My awesome mother got it for me. I ate it up like pie.

Johnny Got His Gun was my gateway drug. I became obsessed. I decided to find out all about the man who wrote the book, and all about the movie, and I quickly did so. I may have been the only underage kid who was spending time (without my parents’ consent or knowledge, of course!) outside Gazzari’s trying to get a date by talking about the blacklist and literary activities of Dalton Trumbo and how that tied into heavy metal. To this day, I am very thankful that approach never worked!

Due to the fact that the internet was not what it is now, it was not until I got to college that this obsession continued in full effect. As I began my film career, I renewed my interest in the subject when I was taking a film history course. To me, the Hollywood Blacklist was one of the most horrifying and awful marks on the industry that we’ve had. I could write for hours and hours simply on that but this is about the Trumbos.

In college, not only did I find that my own family had ties to the Blacklist, but I wrote several pieces exploring the ways that it brutalized people’s souls. At the end of the day, what I found was that Dalton Trumbo, the man who had started this whole journey and catalyzed my interest in this section of American filmic history was a man who, as his son Christopher Trumbo said, “wasn’t able to break the blacklist, to smash it into pieces or obliterate it or crumple it up into a ball and throw it in the trash can — but he was able to cripple it, and when his name appeared on the screen when ‘Spartacus’ and ‘Exodus’ opened within a few months of each other in New York, it became easier for other writers to get their names on what they had written without having to sign statements about what their political beliefs currently were or what they had been in the past or needing to justify themselves to their employers about anything at all.”

Trumbo’s “crippling” of the Blacklist served a great purpose and essentially opened the employment floodgates so that a great many people who had previously been economically and professionally cowed by this terrible tragedy were no longer handicapped in that regard. Dalton Trumbo, to me, was a hero. He had been a hero to me since I had first read about him as a teen, and he became even more of one as I read further.

The blacklist was a time of evil, and that no one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil.

I believe that it was with the introduction of the Blacklist to my life that I realized the importance of the writing community to Hollywood, as a good portion of those that were Blacklisted (and almost all of the Hollywood Ten) were, in fact, writers. It was also at this point that I started visually “collecting” blacklisted writers’ and artists works, Trumbo being foremost on that list.

One of the first films Dalton Trumbo's name ever was allowed to be attached to, "breaking" the Blacklist

Kirk Douglas, by insisting that Dalton Trumbo be allowed on the set (and then putting his name on the film), essentially helped catalyze the "breaking" of the Blacklist

Life can never cage a man like this! And it never could...a great film of Trumbo's and very telling.

Tonight I returned home from the movies to the tragic news. Christopher Trumbo, Dalton Trumbo’s son, had passed away at the age of 70. My heart sank. A few weeks ago, I had snuggled myself up with some cross-stitch and blankets, and put on one of the best documentaries I have seen in many years, and (I will stress this) it was not just because of the subject matter.

In 2003, Christopher wrote a play called Trumbo: Red, White and Blacklisted. Directed by Peter Askin, this piece constructed a narrative about the Blacklist and Trumbo’s life based on his correspondence. It played off-Broadway, and had an intense amount of star-power attached to it at different points. In 2007, this became the basis for the documentary, Trumbo.

Trumbo is not only an excellent documentary, but it is a fabulous example of theater put onto film. It not only shows the talent that Dalton Trumbo himself had, but the skill that Christopher possessed in being able to communicate his father through two different mediums (theater and film) that were so thoroughly enmeshed on the screen. Christopher also adds an even deeper layer. Alongside the aforementioned play/film marriage, there are interviews scattered throughout, reminding us that this is not only players recreating correspondence, but real figures recalling real events. The Trumbo family as well as other Hollywood Ten families are contained within the text, relating their own lives with Dalton, while figures like Liam Neeson and Nathan Lane are reading the letters and playing their “parts” so to speak. There are also interesting connections. Kirk Douglas, a very significant figure in Dalton’s life is an interviewee, while his son is a participant in the performance/dramatic readings.

The following clip is one of my favorite sections from the documentary. But there are oh-so-many more!!

Not that Christopher didn’t have his own separate career. He did! Aside from being the assistant director and associate producer on Johnny Got His Gun and assistant director on Exodus, directly out of college, he also had a long and successful career in television (shows such as Falcon Crest, Quincy, Ironside). Christopher Trumbo was widely considered to be, as Peter Askin said, ” a very smart, funny, articulate guy. He was enormously gifted himself, and with the work he did in respect to his father.”

He was indeed his father’s son. He became one of the preeminent scholars on the Blacklist, devoting much of his life to being as learned about the subject as he possibly could. His sister, Nikola, noted that “His passion for the last 20 years or more was to learn as much as he could about the blacklist and then educate others about it, and I think he went about it using each of those attributes.”

Trumbo once wrote that making the film version of Johnny Got His Gun was his father’s response to the insanity of Viet Nam. It is tragic now that we don’t have anyone as poetic or striking as either Dalton or his son to make such bold and original filmic statements about the way of the world. Rewatching JGHG tonight, it reaffirmed my love for Dalton Trumbo, and my feeling that there is some writing talent that, like Haley’s Comet, only comes around every so often. With Christopher’s passing, and my recent viewing of his documentary, my heart breaks even moreso, as there is also one less historian who was Really There, and can talk about what it was Really Like to live through that kind of persecution.

I suppose that all we can do now is all we have ever done: watch, remember, and never forget.

I know that nothing can happen if I remain silent and that everything becomes possible when people find each other and take each other’s hand. I know that when enough of us are able to put aside our fears and find courage in the name and power of our common humanity, that when we do that one by one and then another and another, again and again, every day and day after day that we will become a great and irresistible multitude and that this war will end.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 24,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 5 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 3 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 32 posts. There were 15 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 810kb. That’s about a picture per month.